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Wang & Ashour-Abdalla 1994
Wang, Z. and Ashour-Abdalla, M. (1994). Simulation of magnetic field line stochasticity at the magnetopause. Journal of Geophysical Research 99: doi: 10.1029/93JA02084. issn: 0148-0227.

We have conducted a three-dimensional particle simulation to study the magnetic field line stochasticity at the magnetopause current layer. Our results show that the magnetic field lines become stochastic due to the overlap of the destabilized multiple tearing mode islands, which agrees with the percolation model suggested by Galeev et al. (1986). After the field lines become stochastic, these tearing modes grow even 2--3 times faster than in the linear stage and saturate at an amplitude level 3--4 times bigger than the single tearing mode without mode-mode coupling. The field line stochasticity also causes a strong particle diffusion across the current layer. The diffusion coefficient reaches to 109 m2/s for typical magnetopause parameters. Associated with the particle diffusion, the current layer becomes broader in width. As a result, the magnetic energy is dissipated into particle energy by heating parallel to the local magnetic field. The particle energy increases by 60%, while the magnetic helicity, which has always been regarded as a good invariant, changes by 20%. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1994

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Abstract

Keywords
Magnetospheric Physics, Current systems, Magnetospheric Physics, Magnetopause, cusp, and boundary layers, Magnetospheric Physics, Magnetospheric configuration and dynamics, Space Plasma Physics, Numerical simulation studies
Journal
Journal of Geophysical Research
http://www.agu.org/journals/jb/
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
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